lørdag 29. juni 2013

I just had to make an Elizabeth Bioshock Infinite cosplay, what a lovely game.

The Bird or the Cage?

For once I was going to take a short cut and order the choker and broche from Etsy. But I misread the description and ended up just buying the choker. It was lovely by the way.

So with little time until deadline I didn't have time to wait for another shipment, so I made it. I wanted the cage version, only because I didn't choose that one in the game (and I think it looks more interesting as a cosplay prop).

So how to make it? Use an existing broche frame or sculpt it, then hand paint the cage? No, we'll make it even easier than that.

Print out a screenshot from the game and glue it on a piece of cardboard (my favorite style). This is after all a blog for recycling and cheap ways to make props, so printing it is!

step one - print

step two - cut

Step three - Add dimensionI built up the center of the cardboard with paper clay to get a little dimension.

Step four - GlueFirst I tried super glue. That dissolved the printing ink. Then I tried my trusted hot glue gun, and jolly it worked. Then I added some strokes of gold paint around the edges and on the details of the cage. Step five - Add some glossMy idea was to use clear paint spray to make it glossy, but I got a tip to use clear nail polish instead. I liked this method, even cheaper than spray paint too.

Step six - attachmentOn the back I glued on a safety pin.

And voila! Cheap cosplay. Would you have guessed that it was a print when you first saw it?

And me in full costume, skirt, jacket corset and Salt bottle made by me. I might put out a simple tutorial for the Salt bottle.

fredag 14. juni 2013

Spare time where did you go? Because lately I have taken on several project and I wan't to finish them all in time for that convention or this convention. As you might (maybe) have noticed, I am working a lot on my Vi costume these days (no shit, Sherlock). And I will even have the honor of meeting Kamui at Desucon and will definitely ask her on tips for my Vi chest armor, especially painting and priming. But before that I will be a judge for the cospaly competition at Arcon the 23rd of June. I figured this would be an excellent time to finish my Codex cosplay. The staff is almost done, my main concern is the dress at the moment. Then we have Desucon the weekend after that where I will team up with Hadley Cosplay for the Elizabeth and Booker Dewitt duo from Bioschock Infinite.

But Desucon lasts two days so I need another costume. Why not use one of my existing cosplays? Because it is more fun to create something new. I wasn't really planning to enter the cosplay contest. But the judges are awesome (Elffi and Kamui) and I really want to dance on stage. So my plan is to enter with my Sea Goddess - Commander of Kraken (Original Design)

Design by me: Sea Goddess - Commander of Kraken

This costume will have a dress inspired by Alexander McQueen, a tentacle staff with glowing orb, as well as several special effect appliances, including face (inspired by Peter Gaal), ears, webbed fingers and fins on both arms and legs. I am also considering adding tentacles in my hair. So there you have it, these four costumes are on my agenda the next weeks, and I promise you there will be a ot of updates.

mandag 10. juni 2013

How to go from this generic punk goggles to a pair good enough for Vi herself, in this tutorial I will cover how to build Vi goggles. For the other tutorials click here.There aren't that many good photos of the goggles I want to make (since as always the in game model is different)

There are still some detailing and last touches needed, but this is roughly how I did it. (yes, I got gold paint on the lenses, derp). But that gold mist can be removed with nail polish remover, see result under:

søndag 9. juni 2013

Getting a pink wig is not the hardest part of a Vi costume, but I still spent a lot of time finding the right color and shape, so why not share this information with other Vi enthusiasts. I bought a dark rose red wig on ebay. And then you have to style it and I just found out a great way to make dreads and the side cut - Needle felting!And if you want to see how I build the rest of the costume - tutorials here.Starting point: plain wig

Then I cut off the hair on the left side (from Vi's perspective) and dyed the hair brown using acrylic color. The back and side is styled using hairspray.

But it still looks like you cut and painted you wig, the hair gets stiff and the wig net might be visible. And from the in game model you can see that the side cit is trimmed very short.

After using the wig once I found out I could make the side cut much better by using brown wool and needle felting. Needle felting means that you use a needle with tiny notches and you pin the wool several times until it gets compact (felted).

In the picture below I have added wool directly onto the wig and felted a small area where the needle is located.

Fully felted. I might blend in some more color to add some depth to the side cut later.

(letting the pink show trough just a little bit)

The dreads

For the dreads I only used the pink extensions first and I tried to section them using hair products. This did not work so well. So why not needle felt these too. And they looked so much better after felting pink (with some small sections of deeper and lighter pinks) wool around the extension.

Extension attached to wig (The color looks a little off in this picture due to different light conditions).

Pink wool and needle

And the ends of the dreads looks better than just straight cut off extensions.

UpdateMany of you have requested more info on how to make the dreads or how to felt. Here's a small (vertical :S ) video demonstrating one way to do it.

mandag 3. juni 2013

This is a tutorial for how I built the shoes for my Vi (League of Legend) cosplay. For my first iteration of my Vi costume I didn't have the time to think about the shoes. But now I do, and they need to be ready for Närcon and NCCThese are the shoes on the in game model which I used mostly as a reference. (Again I want the splash art shoes, but they are not visible)

All about me:

Hello, I’m Christina also known as Chrix Design. I’m a software tester by day, costume maker by night. Most of my life I have been a little "know it all" and very creative. This evolved into me being a science nerd as a child as well as I sewed my own Barbie clothes. In the end I got a Master’s degree in Industrial design engineering. My childhood was also full of video games and my first prop came together mainly because I wanted a Portal Gun over my fireplace. I exploited every occasion to dress up and loved making more and more original costumes. It wasn't until 2011 I heard about cosplay, where had it been all my life! I got so many friends with the same passions for games, costumes, craft and books as me. After this I had no more spare time, there was always a costume to build a tutorial to write and new friends to meet. But I won’t say no to a round of Halo, an evening of board games or watching old Disney movies.
You can contact me at chrix.design.props@gmail.com or via my facebook page.